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•>.-•, 



The Lord*s Day 
Our Sabbath. 



James H, Potts, D.D. 



1 



THE LORD'S DAY 



OUR SABBATH 



BY 



JAMES H. POTTS, D.D 






> 




37?«7'^ 



NEW YORK : HUNT & EATON 

CINCINNATI : CRANSTON & CURTS 

1894 






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Copyright by 

HUNT & EATON, 

1894. 









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lH.O?e* 



Composition, electrotyping, 
printing, and binding by 

Hunt & Eaton, 
150 Fifth Ave., New York. 



^ CONTENTS. |v^ 

A^ssa ^ -^ ^. -^^ 

PAGE 

I. The Sabbath 9 

II. The Jewish Sabbath Day - - - - 12 

III. Peculiarities of Jewish Sabbath Observance - 18 

IV. The Jewish Sabbath Abolished - - - 22 
V. The First Day Restored - - - - - 31 

VI. The Lord's Day ------ 42 

VII. The Lord's Day in History - - - - - 45 

VIII. Observance of the Lord's Day - - - 52 



Upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to 
break bread, Paul preached unto them. — Ac^s 20. 7. 

He taught them these things, which we have submitted to you also 
for your consideration. — Jiistin Martyr, 

Our Lord rested in the grave on the Jewish Sabbath before he insti- 
tuted by his resurrection the new Sabbath of holy joy and active benevo- 
lence — the Lord's Day. — Smith., New Testament History., 313. 





The substance of the following argument was first pre- 
sented in an essay before the Detroit Ministerial Union, 
which body immediately adopted the following resolution : 
Resolved, That Dr. Potts be invited to publish his paper at 
the urgent request of this association. Signed, 

^ Wm. Dawe, 

R. W. Wallace. 

The essay was then elaborated somewhat, and published 
as a series of editorials in the Michigan Christian Advo- 
cate, eliciting many commendations, two or three of which 
may not be out of place in this connection. 

From the pastor at Lacota, Mich. : 

The Sabbath articles did good out here. Put them in a cheap 
pamphlet, so we can give it away. 

O. H. Perry. 

From another pastor : 

Your papers on the Sabbath question were first-class, and the 
argument in favor of the first day of the week being the Chris- 

tian Sabbath was conclusive. 

Thomas Stalker. 

From Rev. C. R. Henderson, D.D., Pastor of Baptist 
Church, Detroit, Mich. : 

Dear Brother:— I thank you for the copy of your papers on 
the Sabbath. The positions seem to me, in the mam, scrip- 

5 



6 Note. 

tural, and the illustrative historical material is very valuable. It 
seems especially well fitted to meet the objections of the seventh- 
day people, whose conscientiousness we do not question, but 
whose persistence in advocating a theory for which there is no 
historical ground, we cannot commend. I am grateful for the 
paper. It must do good ; it is so plain, cogent and informing. 

Yours fraternally, 

C. R. Henderson. 

From Hon. Ira Mayhew, LL.D., Detroit : 

Rev. J. H. Potts, D.D. — Dear Sir : — I have read with inter- 
est your articles in the Advocate on the Christian Sabbath, and 
have reread them with increased satisfaction. The good spirit 
in which they are written, the fairness of their reasoning, and 
the conclusions drawn must make them a comfort to sincere 
Christians who have been troubled with doubts on the subject. 
They are timely, and I thank you for having written them. 

Sincerely yours, 

Ira Mayhew^. 

From Zions Herald : 

The Michigan Christian Advocate is publishing a series of 
very able articles upon the Christian Sabbath, the authority -for 
its obsei-vance upon the first day of the week, the nature of the 
Jewish Sabbath, the Lord's Day, and the history of its recogni- 
tion in successive ages. These timely and thoughtful discussions 
should be published in the form of a cheap volume for general 
circulation. 

Proof sheets were also submitted to several well-known 
theologians and scholars, with the request that they specify 
such points in the argument as might appear to them in 
need of elimination, modification, or restatement. The 
responses to this request were generous, and many of the 
suggestions very helpful. Rev. Milton S. Terry, D.D., 



Note. 7 

Professor in Garrett Biblical Institute, submitted an espe- 
cially valuable criticism, the point of which we have availed 
ourself of in these pages. He also accompanied his sug- 
gestions with the following brotherly note : 

EVANSTON, 111. 
Rev. J. H. Potts, D.D., Detroit: 

Dear Brother : — I have read your Sabbath argument, and 
also submitted it to Dr. Bennett, who is specially familiar with 
the history of the doctrine. We both agree that your argument 
is convincing and conclusive, and I take pleasure in replying to 
yours of the 6th instant, and saying this. I trust its publication 
may do much good. 

Very truly yours, 

M. S. Terry. 

Dr. Raymond responded in a characteristic manner as 
follows : 

EVANSTON, 111. 

Dear Brother : — I could never see how a man of thought 
could get up a conscience on the question you discuss. If argu- 
ments can be of any service to such a one, what ought to con- 
vince him may be found in your essay. My judgment may not 
be worth much, as I have never been so circumstanced as to 
feel any special interest in the question. You make clear what, 
as I see it, is the main essential thing, and the only thing of 
divine requirement, namely, in that one seventh of time is to be 
observed as "lioly rest." 

Yours truly, 

M. Raymond. 

Right Rev. Samuel Smith Harris, D.D., LL.D., 
Bishop of Michigan, wrote with much fraternal grace, as 
follows : 

My Dear Dr. Potts : — I beg you to pardon my long delay 
in acknowledging your kind letter and the proofs of your argu- 



8 Note. 

ment for the Christian Sabbath. I have been so driven by my 
work that it is only now that I find time to read your very ad- 
mirable paper ; and I write at once to thank you for it. It 
seems to me to be the most comprehensive and complete answer 
to the Seventh-day Adventists that I have yet seen ; while it is, 
at the same time, a most admirable discussion of the whole Sun- 
day question. Your paper will be of much value to me, and I 
intend to make immediate use of some of your arguments. 
Believe me to be, with great respect, 

Very sincerely yours, 

Samuel S. Harris. 

We do not give these opinions of distinguished men with 
the thought that they will help to popularize an essay which 
otherwise might attract no attention, but to show that we 
have taken reasonable precaution to sift out and crystallize 
only the safest and surest arguments which could be 
grouped in small compass, in the hope of convincing doubt- 
ing minds that God*s foundation truth lies directly under 
the history of the Christian Church in its observance of the 
Lord's Day, and of showing that those who would under- 
mine this truth must dig deeper than Sabbatarians yet 
have done or may hope to do. 



THE LORD'S DAY OUR SABBATH, 



THE SABBATH. 

HE Jews observed their Sabbath on the seventh day of 
the week. Christians observe their Sabbath on the 
first day of the week. Are Christians justified in 
keeping holy a day which the Jews did not, and in disre- 
garding the day which the Jews observed as sacred ? In 
other words, Is the Christian Sabbath day of divine author- 
ity? We answer. Yes ! Unqualifiedly and unmistakably, 
Yes ! Now for the evidence. 

First, Let us bear in mind the fact that the Sabbath is 
not a day ; it is not Sunday, or Saturday, or any other day ; 
it is holy rest unto the Lord. The day is simply a space 
of time set apart for observing the thing itself, namely, holy 
rest. To a man who disregards the commandment to keep 
God's Sabbath there is no such thing as a Sabbath. The 
day called Sunday is no Sabbath to the Sabbath violator ; 
it is simply a day like all other days. Nature brings the 
day, but grace furnishes the " rest." To only a compara- 
tive few in this so-called Christian land is there any real 
Sabbath on the legal Sabbath day. The law can make a 
Sabbath day, but it is difficult for the law to make a Sab- 
bath. The Sabbath is a rest which remains for the people 
of God. 

Nevertheless, a Sabbath rest is of universal obligation. 
It is as binding as the moral law. The fourth command- 

9 



lo The Lord's Day 

ment reads : " Keep the Sabbath day to sanctify it." The 
•* day " may be different under different dispensations, as 
we shall show, but that does not alter the Sabbath itself. 
Whether the Sabbath occur on the first day or seventh day, 
the law of God requires its observance. 

St. Paul says : ** The law was our schoolmaster to bring 
us to Christ." This is especially true of the Sabbath law. 
The Jewish Sabbath law was designed to lead directly to 
the better Christian Sabbath law. Christ, who proclaimed 
himself as " Lord of the Sabbath," kept the Jewish Sabbath 
until he had instituted the Sabbath of grace. This he did 
during the close of his earthly ministry. With the usher- 
ing in of the Christian dispensation the commandments 
contained in ordinances were taken out of the way — re- 
moved with the Levitical priesthood, as we shall show 
further on. 

But it must be distinctly understood that the moral law 
was not thereby abrogated. The moral law is not a thing 
to be affected by changing dispensations. Itself a tran- 
script of the divine mind, it is written upon the consciences 
of all men, whether revealed religion has appeared to them 
or not (Rom. 2. 15). Our Lord says he did not come to 
destroy the law (Matt. 5. 17). Paul says he does not make 
void the law through faith, but that he establishes the law 
(Rom. 3. 31). John says that he that sins transgresseth 
also the law, for sin is the transgression of the law (i John 
3. 4). James warns Christians to live so as to be judged by 
the Gospel, and not by the law (James 2. 8-13), but he does 
not intimate that the law is void. Paul says : " Christ is the 
end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believ- 
eth " (Rom. 10. 4). Therefore he says to Christians : 
"Ye are not under the law, but under grace" (Rom. 6. 14). 



Our Sabbath. ii 

If Christians are not under law, but under grace, they are 
not under the Sabbath of the law, but under the Sabbath 
of grace. 

The law under the Mosaic dispensation was formulated into 
nine moral precepts, with a Sabbath commandment added, 
making ten in all. This same law under the Christian dis- 
pensation is summarized under two grand heads — love to 
God, and love to man. Yet not one jot or one tittle of the 
essence of the moral law is abated. When Paul, referring 
to the abolishment of the law dispensation, said, " For if 
that which was done away was glorious, much more that 
which remaineth is glorious," he indicated the correct 
status of the law. The essence of the moral law ** remain- 
eth." It was ratified by our Lord in his reply to the young 
man who questioned him as to the condition of his soul's 
salvation, *' Thou knowest the commandments. Do not 
kill," etc. Though he did not here quote the Sabbath 
commandment, he quoted enough to show that he sanc- 
tioned the substance of that immortal code. And when, as 
we believe, he afterwards designated a different day for 
Sabbath observance, he placed the seal of confirmation 
upon that commandment also. 

The whole Christian world maintains the use and obli- 
gation of Sunday on the ground of the law in the Decalogue, 
and the satisfactory evidence in the New Testament that 
the day was changed to the first day of the week. Through- 
out Christendom the weekly day of rest and worship as a 
matter of divine and perpetual obligation is solemnly recog- 
nized. We emphasize this point because Sabbatarians 
sometimes insinuate that Christians allow the Sabbath com- 
mandment to sit lightly upon them. Nothing could be 
farther from the truth. And it is mere delusion to suppose 



12 The Lord's Day 

that by going back to the Jewish seventh day a better Sab- 
bath observance would be secured. In no way could the 
obligation be made more sacred than it is. 

Christians keep the commandments of God without ex- 
ception. They keep the Sabbath commandment with es- 
pecially conscientious care. Nowhere in the Bible are we 
required to observe the seventh day of the week, as the week 
is now reckoned. The words, *' seventh day," are every 
time directly connected with six work days. So the Sab- 
bath law is, work six days, and rest one day. One seventh 
of our time is to be sacred unto God. 



THE JEWISH SABBATH DAY. 

How did the seventh-day Sabbath originate? Briefly 
stated, its history is this : 

Moses gave it to the Israelites throughout their genera- 
tions, partly as a sign between God and them, that its ob- 
servance would mark them off from the idolatrous nations 
that surrounded them (see Exod. 31. 13, 14; Ezek. 20. 12), 
and partly as a commemoration of their deliverance from 
Egyptian bondage. Wherefore " remember that thou wast 
a stranger in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God 
brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a 
stretched out arm : therefore the Lord thy God commanded 
thee to keep the Sabbath day" (Deut. 5. 15). "Very 
probably," says Canon Cooke, ** the special day of the seven, 
which became the Jewish Sabbath, was the very day on 
which the Lord brought them from the land of bondage, 
and gave them rest from the slavery of Egypt. If this rea- 
soning be true, all mankind are interested in the sanctifica- 
tion of the Sabbath, though Jews only are required to keep 



Our Sabbath. 13 

that Sabbath on Saturday." (Read Exod. 12. 14-18; 13.3,4; 
Num. 28. 17.) It is probable that great confusion existed 
immediately prior to the giving of the law as to the day on 
which the Sabbath should be observed. The idolatry and 
general wickedness which characterized the centuries from 
Adam to Moses had involved mankind in a condition of re- 
ligious apathy and ignorance. 

For a period of 2,000 years preceding the giving of the 
law on Sinai, there is no evidence of regular Sabbath keep- 
ing, though the race had the force of a divine example to 
keep holy one seventh of the time. The people forgot God, 
neglected duty, lost sight and thought of spiritual worship, 
and served other gods. 

Moses sought to restore the worship of the true God, and 
to restore it in such a way as would be most impressive and 
helpful to God's chosen people. That in selecting the Jew- 
ish Sabbath day he selected the regular successive seventh 
day of human time from Adam down cannot be proved by 
any authority, human or divine. " There is no possible 
means," affirms Rev. George Elliott in his work on The 
AMdi7ig Sabbath, "of fixing the day of the original Sab- 
bath. The week is not the aliquot part of any other divi- 
sion of time, either lunar or solar. It does not, therefore, 
fit itself regularly into any calendar. That it should have 
been preserved unchanged, while the more regular calen- 
dar of months and years has undergone alteration more 
than once, is not for one moment to be believed." 

It is evident, how^ever, that in designating the seventh 
day of the week as the Jewish Sabbath, Moses had in mind 
the example of God's rest on the seventh day of the cre- 
ative week. "• For in six days the Lord made heaven and 
earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the 



14 The Lord's Day 

seventh day ; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, 
and hallowed it" (Exod. 20. 11). 

It must not be assumed that these w^ords are exactly 
parallel to those of Gen. 2. 2, 3, which read: *' And on the 
seventh day God ended his work which he had made ; and 
he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he 
had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sancti- 
fied it." The best scholars generally hold that this partic- 
ular seventh day which God sanctified is a vast period of 
time, reaching from the close of creation down to our own 
day, and on into the future. It is God's Sabbath, not 
man's, though no doubt the former is the good reason for 
the latter. The idea is, that as God rested on the seventh 
day of the creative week, so he blessed the seventh day of 
the human week as the particular Sabbath of the Jews. 

But, even allowing the '* days " of creation to be literal 
solar days, it would still follow that God's seventh day 
would not be man's seventh day. *' The seventh day which 
God blessed in Eden was the first full day of human life, 
and not the seventh day ; and it is certain that God did not 
rest from his labors on man's seventh day, but on man's 
first. We feel inclined then to hold with Luther, that in 
Gen. 2. 2, 3, Moses says nothing about man's day, and 
that the seventh day, which received the divine benediction, 
was God's own great asonian period of sabbatic rest." 
(Whitelaw.) 

Yet, man had a time reckoning, a week, and probably a 
Sabbath rest, prior to the giving of the Mosaic law. There 
are indications of it among the patriarchs (Gen. 29. 27, 28), 
among the antediluvians (Gen. 8. 6-12), and back, even, to 
Cain and Abel (Chap. 4. 3). Profane history shows that 
among the ancient Persians, Indians, and Germans, the 



Our Sabbath. 15 

number seven was esteemed as sacred. The Assyrians, 
Babylonians, Egyptians, and other nations of antiquity were 
acquainted with the hebdomadal division of time. The 
true genesis of this, we think, is to be found in the prim- 
itive observance of a day of rest in accordance with the di- 
vine example. 

Allowing, then, that Adam rested with his Maker in 
paradise, and adopted that rest as his own on each succeed- 
ing seventh day of human time, on what day of the human 
week would that rest fall ? Geology agrees with Genesis, 
that on the sixth day occurred the creation of beast, cattle, 
and creeping things, ending in the formation of man in the 
image of God. Man is the last of the geological series, such 
as fish, reptiles, and mammalia, and is the crown and con- 
summation of God's creative work. His existence, then, 
began at or near the close of the sixth creative day, so that 
God's Sabbath rest was man's first full day. If he began 
the calculation of the week from that time, then the first 
day of the human w^eek, and not the seventh, was the primi- 
tive and patriarchal Sabbath. '* The holy rest day was the 
seventh from the first, in the count of God's works for man ; 
but it was the first day in his created history. He appeared 
before his Maker on that day, in possession of all good, and 
in the probationary prospect of a confirmation of it forever. 
The day was therefore blessed and sanctified to man, as 
containing in its present and promised good his everlasting 
inheritance. No bloody rites and typical shadows had con- 
ducted him to the enjoyment of that glorious day; it arose 
to him as the rest of God. All was very ^ood, and all was 
very satisfactory, both to God and man. But from this 
lofty probation he fell by transgression under the curse of 
the whole law. All good w^as lost, and all threatened evil 



i6 The Lord's Day 

was incurred, and we must now keep our eyes fixed upon 
this day of the Lord, till its lost blessing shall be recovered 
through his mediation." (Biblical Chronology, President 
Akers, p. iii.) 

The change of this original order of the Sabbath day by 
the Jews has been remarked by many discerning writers. 
The record of it, as given in Exod. i6, is worth a careful 
reading. ** See," said Moses, *' for that the Lord hath given 
you the Sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the sixth day 
the bread of two days ; abide ye every man in his place ; 
let no man go out of his place on the seventh day. So the 
people rested on the seventh day " (Exod. i6. 29, 30). 
Now, what was this particular ''seventh day?" In the 
opening verse of the chapter we are told that the children 
of Israel came unto the wilderness of Sin "on the fifteenth 
day of the second month after their departure out of the 
land of Egypt." The people were hungry',' and murmured 
against God. Manna was immediately sent to them. It 
fell on the morning of the i6th, and continued to fall regu- 
larly for six consecutive nights, but on the morning of the 
22d there was none. This was the Jewish Sabbath. Yet 
the 1 5th day (just one week previous) was not a Sabbath, 
but a secular day, for the people had traveled on that day, 
which they would not have done had the day been sacred. 
It is evident, therefore, that here we find a change of the 
patriarchal Sabbath. But it was not designed to be a per- 
manent change. It was for the Jews, " throughout their 
generations." 

Referring to this historical record in Exodus, Dr. H. C. 
Benson says : '* It is so explicit that we are not left in doubt 
as to the fact that the Sabbath, as observed in the wilder- 
ness of Sin, had not been a day hallowed by the Lord 



Our Sabbath. 17 

previous to that time. There had been, we doubt not, a 
patriarchal Sabbath, but on another day of the week.*' 

Rev. W. H. Rogers says that " the only change of the 
Sabbath by God's authority is for the Jews between the 
giving, of manna and the resurrection of Christ. The first 
day of the week, but always the seventh day after the six 
working days, was the day of the holy rest from Adam to 
Moses. Then Sabbatism was separated from idolatry by 
changing it from Sunday to Saturday among the chosen 
people "through their generations," 1,500 years. At 
Christ's resurrection expired by statute limitation this Jew- 
ish peculiarity or exceptional change, leaving the divine 
rule for all mankind, requiring first-day Sabbath keeping, 
as had been the case for the first 2,500 years of human 
history." 

Joseph Sutclir<>, the English commentator, says that the 
Sabbath was changed on leaving Egypt in accordance with 
the declaration of Deut. 5.3: ** The Lord made not this 
covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are 
all of us here alive this day." Commenting on Ezek. 20. 
12-20, he says: "That holy day, though sanctified from the 
creation, had been almost lost in Egypt. It was restored 
by Moses as a sign of the covenant, in the increase of corn 
on the year preceding the Sabbatic year and the year pre- 
ceding the jubilee. And it is thought from Deut. 5 that 
the Sabbath was anticipated one day on leaving Egypt, the 
Egyptians having been drowned in the morning watch of 
the fifteenth day. If otherwise, they must have marched 
on the Sabbath day. In that view our Saviour has restored 
the Sabbath by his resurrection to the very day of rest after 
the creation." 

All this is clear enough, yet we consider the essential 
2 



i8 The Lord's Day 

nature of the Sabbath as not a time element, a fixed and 
unalterable period, beginning at a specified hour of a speci- 
fied day of the week^ and ending in a similar manner ; but 
rather a great spiritual idea developed through the ages of 
divine teaching and dealing with the race, and enforced by 
solemn sanctions both natural and revealed. Were it other- 
wise, what would become of Sabbath observers at the poles, 
where the " day " is six months long ? And what would 
voyagers around the world do, who gain or lose a day in 
their reckoning, according as they go east or west? It was 
a very pertinent recommendation made by Dr. John Wallas, 
of Oxford, that all seventh-day Sabbatarians should make a 
voyage around the world, " going out of the Atlantic Ocean 
westward by the Straits of Magellan to the East Indies, and 
then from the east returning by the Cape of Good Hope 
homeward, and let them keep their Saturday-Sabbath all 
the way. When they come home to England they will find 
their Saturday to fall on our Sunday, and they may thence- 
forth continue to observe their Saturday-Sabbath on the 
same day with us." 



PECIJLIAIIITIES OF THE JEWISH SABBATH 
OBSERVANCE. 

It will serve our purpose to note that as the Jews fixed 
upon the seventh day of the week for their Sabbath rest, so 
they also settled upon certain peculiar methods of obser\'ing 
the day, some of which would not admit of universal appli- 
cation. 

I. They made the Sabbath rest absolute, enforcing it by 
national authority, defining specifically the time of it — from 
sunset to sunset — and making the slightest violation, even 



Our Sabbath. 19 

incidentally, punishable with death. The people were not 
even allowed to kindle a fire on the Sabbath day. (See Exod. 
35. 2, 3.) How would such a regulation answer with us 
who are living under the light of the Gospel, and profess to 
be governed by the law of love ? 

Yet the very fact that the Jewish regulation is not appli- 
cable to every climate of earth is a proof that it has been 
supplanted by a regulation that is applicable everywhere. 
*' Man was not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath for 
man," in all his diversified conditions and circumstances. 

2. It was commemorative of national deliverance. The 
Jew was to remember his deliverance from Egyptian bond- 
age as often as his Sabbath day returned. (See Deut. 5. 
1 3-1 5.) Those who now imitate the Jews should be equally 
mindful of this Jewish memorial. If they say. That me- 
morial has no meaning to us now, and we are not bound to 
hold it in mind, they thereby concede that the Jewish Sab- 
bath was not intended for every age and nation. It was for 
one nation, and one alone — an educational institution pre- 
paratory to the Sabbath that is universal and eternal. 

To the patriarch the Sabbath memorialized the creation, 
and to the Jew deliverance from Egyptian bondage. Now, 
it would be very strange that if the Sabbath meant more to 
the pious Jew than it did to the patriarchy it should not sig- 
nify more to us than it did to the Jew. It is not natural to 
expect that this one, of all religious institutions, should con- 
tinue pointing back to creation, or to the facts significant 
to only one nation. In the dispensation of grace it must 
point, as all other similar institutions do, to some important 
spiritual truth. It must commemorate the most important 
of all Christian events — our redemption. Redemption is 
greater than creation ; greater than Jewish national freedom. 



20 The Lord's Day 

** It was great to speak a world from naught, but greater to 
redeem." Without redemption creation would have been 
a curse and not a blessing to sinful man, 

3. The principle of commemoration led to the institution 
of several Sabbaths, such as the Sabbath of weeks, the 
Sabbath of months, the Sabbath of years, the Sabbath of 
Sabbatic years, etc., a system which, if perpetuated in 
Christianity, would have proved an intolerable burden. 
And yet here again we claim that, to be consistent, the 
keeper of the Jewish Sabbath of days should keep the entire 
round of Jewish Sabbaths. Some of the early converts to 
Christianity attempted this, and Paul rebuked them, say- 
ing : " But now, after that ye have known God, or rather 
are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beg- 
garly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage ? 
Ye observe days, and months, and years. I am afraid of 
you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain " (Gal. 4. 
9-1 1). The Christian who turns back to the Jewish Sabbath 
day turns to *' a weak and beggarly element," and it is to be 
feared that New Testament instruction has been bestowed 
on him in vain. Many Jews themselves are more progress- 
ive than this. A prominent Jew of Chicago has already 
proposed to his Jewish brethren, on the broad claims of 
humanity, and in the interest of Jewish artisans, that at a 
convention of representative Jews from all parts of the 
world, to be held in Paris in the year 1900, the Jewish Sab- 
bath be transferred to the national day of rest by authori- 
tative edict. At the convention of the Reformed Hebrew 
Church, held a few years ago in Pittsburg, Pa., not only 
was circumcision handled without gloves as "a relic of 
barbarism," but "it was agreed that while Saturday is to 
be still remembered as a sort of historic monument, yet for 



Our Sabbath. 21 

business convenience worship may be transferred to Sun- 
day, while all the features of it may be so modified, accord- 
ing to the popular cultus, as to make it more widely attract- 
ive." Such a concession ought to put to shame persons 
calling themselves Christians who are as particular as the 
ancient Jews about "times and seasons," insisting that the 
Sabbath day is from Friday sunset to Saturday sunset, and 
that this exact time alone must forever be held sacred. 

4. The day itself, rather than the spirit of it, became the 
important thing. The civil and ceremonial observances 
were more than the spiritual rest or worship. This was the 
trouble with the Jews. They rested everything upon the 
outward observance, and when our Lord came he had to 
cut right through many of their traditions and customs, 
and revolutionize the whole inner life. In no particular did 
he do this more thoroughly and strikingly than in respect to 
the Jewish Sabbath. Many Jewish peculiarities, like the 
passover, the feast of the weeks, the feast of the tabernacles, 
the Aaronic high priesthood, the annual atonement, the 
various offerings and oblations, the showbread, the cere- 
monial purifications, the special penalties by which certain 
laws were enforced, were all utterly abolished by Christian- 
ity ; they were mere shadows of good things to come, but 
the Sabbath, like marriage and the principle of the minis- 
try, was not abolished, though it was changed to suit the 
Christian system. The corrupt glosses of Jewish tradition 
were stripped off from it, and only the holy principle re- 
mained. 

Says the apostle Paul : " For if that first covenant had 
been faultless, then should no place have been sought for 
the second. For finding fault with them, he saith. Behold, 
the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new 



22 The Lord's Day 

covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of 
Juclah : not according to the covenant that I made with 
their fathers, in the day when I took them by the hand to 
lead them out of the land of Egypt ; because they continued 
not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the 
Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the 
house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord ; I will put 
my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts : 
and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a 
people " (Heb. 8. 7-10). The first covenant, then, w^as 
that made to Moses on Sinai, consisting of circumcision. 
Sabbath days (not the Sabbath rest itself, for that was a 
permanency in religion before Moses was born), priesthood, 
sacrifices, and offerings for sin. The second covenant was 
a spiritual covenant, which had its fulfillment, or the begin- 
ning of its fulfillment, in the advent and ministry of Christ. 
This subject will be treated more fully in the next chapter. 



THE JEWISH SABBATH ABOLISHED. 

One stupendous fact open to every observer towers above 
all arguments to-day, and that is, The Jewish Sabbath is 
abolished and the Lord's Day is established. This is not a 
thing yet to be done ; it is already accomplished. The 
truth of it confronts you wherever you go. Sunday is now 
the Sabbath day the world over, and has been from time 
immemorial. By some cause, in some age, this effect has 
been produced, and it is incumbent upon the opponent of 
the Sunday Sabbath to account for it. 

Seventh-day Adventists are fond of asserting that the 
Pope of Rome changed the day. This is more flattering to 
the pope than to the rest of mankind. But flattery is all 



Our Sabbath. 23 

there is of it. History does not support the assertion. 
Everybody is familiar with the pretensions of Romanists, 
that their Church originated with Christ and the apostles, 
and that any change made by the apostolic Church was 
made by the Catholic Church. They therefore defend Sun- 
day, or our Lord's Day, as the true Sabbath " by apostolic 
tradition." In asserting, as Adventists do, that the change 
was made by apostate popes hundreds of years after Christ, 
they misrepresent the teachings of Catholics and betray 
their own ignorance of history. The pope did not change 
the Sabbath. He could not have done it had he sought to 
do so. A higher than human authority was necessary to 
effectuate such a change. Mankind are not such fools as 
to permit a revolution of religious faith by papal bull alone. 
This earth has always contained a vast number of intelli- 
gent people who were not Romanists, and they would not 
have allowed so momentous a change to take place without 
a protest which history would have recorded. 

Besides all this it is easy to trace the change far back of 
popes and priests and their dupes, even to the ministry of 
our Lord himself. 

Two great facts are plainly discernible in our Lord's re- 
lation to the Sabbath. 

I. He himself respected it as an institution, and was 
careful to say or do nothing which would tend to lessen its 
hold upon popular favor. He knew that the Sabbath as an 
institution was designed by God for perpetual observance, 
and his aim was to purify it from Jewish austerities under 
which it had become a heavy yoke, and fit it up for joyous 
observance throughout the era he was ushering in. 

Jesus honored the Sabbath on all occasions. He never 
violated its sanctity, though he did bring it back to its 



24 The Lord's Day 

genuine spirit and design. On eleven recorded occasions 
he manifested his spirit and doctrine in respect to the 
Sabbath. (See Matt. 12. 9-21 ; Mark 6. 1-6; Luke 4. i6~ 
22, 31-37, 3M1 ; 6. i-S ; 13. 10-17 \ 14. 1-6; John 5. 5- 
18; 7. 21-23; 9. 1-41.) A careful examination of these 
passages will show that our Lord honored and kept the 
Jewish Sabbath while it was in vogue, and that he did 
nothing upon the Sabbath day which he could not success- 
fully defend by appealing to the Mosaic law. Even the 
scribes and Pharisees had nothing to say against his loyalty 
to the Sabbath until they had formed the purpose to be rid 
of his teachings and influences at any cost, and were casting 
about for some pretext as a basis for an accusation. Jesus 
Christ by word and deed taught that the Sabbath in all 
essentials is of perpetual moral obligation. He exalted it, 
maintained its sanctity, and paved the way for the changes 
which he proposed to effect in the time and manner of its 
observance. 

2. Our Saviour taught that " the Sabbath was made for 
man," and proclaimed himself *' Lord of the Sabbath." 
This was a very important doctrine. It prepared the way 
for the gradual revolution which afterward occurred. Had 
he taught that man was made for the Sabbath he would 
have effectually blocked the way against any change either 
as to the day itself, or as to any customs originating in the 
Mosaic law. But conscious of an express mission to make 
the Sabbath what it should be, and to give it a new hold 
upon the affections of mankind, he proceeded to strip it of 
the erroneous notions and false glosses of the Jewish 
doctors, and to enthrone it in popular regard as the day of 
privilege and benefits. Time and again he condemned the 
narrow-minded, carnal scrupulousness of the Jews in their 



Our Sabbath. 25 

Sabbath observance, and pointed out the true nature and 
intent of the Sabbath law. (Read Matt. 12. 1-8, 9-14; 
Mark 2. 27 ; John 7. 22, 23.) Jesus was preparing the way 
for the teachings of Paul in Gal. 4. 8-1 1 ; Col. 2. 16, 17. 

Nothing can exceed the error and absurdity of the Jews 
in their manner of observing the Sabbath. They made the 
law an excuse for selfishness, laziness, and inhumanity. 
They used it as a cloak for covering innumerable sins of 
omission. They excused themselves, for instance, from 
offices of piety and charity to their neighbor, and held that 
no ointment should be applied to a wound on the Sabbath, 
nor any attempt be made to cure a chronic disease. No 
wonder that Jesus chose the Sabbath day for many of his 
noblest miracles of healing, or that he selected chronic 
complaints as the customary objects of his compassion. 
His object was to sweep away the rubbish of human tra- 
dition which perverted the true design and encumbered the 
real duties of the Sabbath. 

Among the thirty-nine kinds of work prohibited on the 
Sabbath day were such trifling things as these : ** Taking 
two stitches," " twisting two threads," ** untangling two 
threads," "making a knot," "untying a knot," "writing 
two letters of the alphabet," " carrying a thing [even a 
mouthful of milk or a piece of food as large as a dried fig] 
from one place to another," etc. And among the sup- 
plementary prohibitions were enumerated a great many 
seemingly innocent things, such as getting on an ani- 
mal's back, holding a consultation, setting apart the tithe, 
instructing children, caring for the sick, succoring the af- 
flicted, relieving the distress of dumb brutes, etc. (See 
Palestine in the Time of Christy pp. 350-354.) 

The fanatics of our day who would fain restore the Jew- 



26 The Lord's Day 

ish Sabbath should pause and consider the burdens it im- 
posed. It cost the blessed Saviour his life to deliver the 
people from this galling yoke. Blessed be his holy name, 
that he accomplished so benign a mission, giving to the 
world a Sabbath law of love and charity, and a Sabbath 
day of sweet memories and beautiful rejoicings. 

It is significant that these people who exhibit fondness 
for the abolished Sabbath day are themselves almost as 
gloomy and restless as were the old Jews whom the Saviour 
reproved. Sabbatarians are notoriously fidgety and sensi- 
tive. They are always courting an argument, perennially 
iterating the proofs of their faith, striving as it were to sat- 
isfy themselves in a belief which admits of no satisfaction. 
The Christian view of the Sabbath law is the only view 
which brings rest to the spirit and entire satisfaction to the 
thoughtful mind. Sabbatarians who have finally been 
brought to see the error of their ways have confessed as 
much as this. Thus Rev. D. i\I. Canright, once so promi- 
nent in Adventist circles, but now happy in the true Sab- 
bath rest, says : ** Almost universally Christians regard 
Sunday as a sacred day. Do they offer for this any ade- 
quate reasons ? Yes, indeed, and those which have been 
satisfactory to all the best and ablest Christians the Church 
has ever had. After keeping the seventh-day and exten- 
sively advocating it for over a quarter of a century, I be- 
came satisfied that it was an error, and that the blessing of 
God did not go with the keeping of it. Like thousands of 
others, when I embraced the seventh-day Sabbath I thought 
that the argument was all on one side, so plain that one 
hour's reading ought to settle it, so clear that no man could 
reject the Sabbath and be honest. The only marvel to me 
was that everybody did not see and embrace it. 



Our Sabbath. 27 

" But alter keeping it twenty-eight years, after having 
persuaded more than a thousand others to keep it ; after 
having read my Bible through, verse by verse, more than 
twenty times ; after having scrutinized, to the best of 
my abiUty, every text, Hne, and word of the Bible having 
the remotest bearing on the Sabbath question ; after having 
looked up all these, both in the original and in many trans- 
lations ; after having searched in lexicons, concordances, 
commentaries, and dictionaries ; after having read armfuls 
of books on both sides of the question ; after having read 
every line in all the early fathers upon this point, and having 
written several works in favor of the seventh day, which 
were satisfactory to my brethren ; after having debated the 
question for more than a dozen times ; after seeing the 
fruits of keeping it, and weighing all the evidence in the 
fear of God, I am fully settled in my own mind and con- 
science that the evidence is against the keeping of the sev- 
enth day." {Seve7tth-day Adventzsm Renounced. A very 
helpful book. P. 185.) 

It is within the power of every Seventh-day Adventist, 
from his own free choice, to investigate the truth, break 
away from his errors, and become just as settled and happy 
in Sunday keeping as Mr. Canright is. The evidence is 
within the reach of all and the path of duty lies open. 

History shows that Sabbatarianism is an utter failure at 
best. In England, over three hundred years ago, some 
zealots tried earnestly to revive the Jewish Sabbath, but 
scarcely a remnant of their following remains. " The cause 
is evident; God is not in it. It comes to naught every 
time it is tried." (Canright.) 

It is two hundred and thirty years since the Seventh-day 
Baptists began teaching this doctrine in America, but they 



28 The Lord's Day 

have not prospered much, especially as compared with the 
regular Baptists and other first-day Christians. It is nearly 
fifty years since the Seventh-day Adventists began their 
work. They have been very zealous and self-sacrificing— 
especially the common people among them ; why is it that 
we never hear of their leaders contributing their jewels and 
watches for the propagation of their cause ? — but they are 
not numerous ; their membership does not exceed forty or 
fifty thousand. They do their best to succeed, but their 
doctrines are not attended by Gospel power. We believe 
that their few accessions come from efforts to unsettle other 
Christians, rather than from evangelistic work. Surely a 
true man or woman of God, who has squandered strength 
in trying to establish theunestablishable ought to turn from 
so manifest an error ere the spirit takes its flight to the 
Judge of quick and dead. 

Let u s look further into the inspired evidence that the Jewish 
Sabbath was abolished with the ushering in of the Christian 
era. First, we will restate the fact that the old covenant 
containing the seventh-day law is done away. Read Jer. 21. 
31-34, and see how he prophesied that a new covenant, not 
according to the old one, God would make with his people. 
Then turn to Heb. 8. 6-13, and read how Paul quotes Jere- 
miah, and claims that the Gospel covenant fulfills the old 
prophecy. If you wish to understand exactly what the old 
covenant was, turn and read Exod. 19 to 24, and then Deut. 
4. 12, 13 ; 5. 2, 3. Paul says that this old covenant made 
with the fathers is ''done away," "abolished." Read 
2 Cor. 3. 3-14. The law of God is now written by the 
Spirit of God in the heart. It includes all that is of moral 
force in the old code, and is adapted to the Gospel age and 
the universal character of the Christian religion. 



Our Sabbath. 29 

In Gal. 4. 21-24 the apostle makes this truth yet more 
emphatic and clear. Abraham had two sons, one by a bond- 
maid, the other by a free woman. The son of the bond- 
maid represents the old covenant with its burdensome 
Sabbath law, while the son of the free mother represents 
the new covenant with its new Sabbath day, and its new 
summary of the Decalogue, namely, ** Thou shalt love the 
Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thy- 
self." Paul says : " Stand fast therefore in the liberty 
wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled 
again with the yoke of bondage " (Gal. 5. i). There is not 
one jot or one tittle of the essence of the moral law done 
away in Christ, but there is an abrogation of all that was 
merely transitory, educational, local, and Jewish. 

We have shown that the Sabbath was made for man ; 
that it was originally granted him as a boon ; that it was 
intended for his repose from worldly toil ; that it was not 
for the Jew merely, but for man as man, in every age and 
clime w^here the religion of Jesus should be preached. 
Paul's teachings show that the Jewish Sabbath is forever 
abolished, and that the Lord's Day is the true Sabbath 
adapted to this universal end. 

The Jewish Sabbath is no more in force since than it 
was before the Mosaic economy. The Mosaic sacrifices, 
ceremonial laws, judicial statutes, the signs and badges of 
the national covenant, the times and seasons of the old rit- 
ual, the limitations of days, and the whole manner and tone 
of Jewish worship are forever gone. These are " carnal or- 
dinances," " a yoke which neither our fathers nor we were 
able to bear." They are gone. They are " blotted out." 
The handwTiting of ordinances is taken out of the way, 
nailed to the cross. " Let no man therefore judge you in 



30 The Lord's Day 

meat, or in drink, or in respect of a holyday, or of the new 
moon, or of the Sabbath days: which are a shadow of things 
to come ; but the body is of Christ." (Col. 2. 14-17.) 

We have a new Sabbath day. Paul preached on this 
new day. He also preached on the Jewish Sabbath day. 
Like his Lord and Master, he could boast that he had done 
nothing ** against the law of the Jews" (Acts 25. 8), and 
that he had " committed nothing against the people, or cus- 
toms of our fathers" (Acts 28. 17). He respected their 
customs as long as he could, and took advantage of their 
places and seasons of w^orship to declare unto them " a 
more excellent \vay." Yet he inaugurated the new Sab- 
bath, and was invariably found with his fellow-Christians 
performing acts of worship on that day. Read Acts 20. 7 : 
" And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples 
came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, 
ready to depart on the morrow." Here four important 
facts are stated : i. It was Sunday. 2. The disciples met 
as usual on that day to " break bread," which was distinc- 
tively an act of Christian worship. 3. Paul preached a Gos- 
pel sermon, which, with other services, lasted until mid- 
night. 4. The next day was a secular day, on w^hich the 
apostle could lawfully depart. This entire text is a deadly 
blow to Sabbatarianism. So also is i Cor. 16. i, 2. Here 
the apostle incidentally mentions the observance of the 
Lord's Day as a matter of course, not to give directions 
about the day itself, but to emphasize certain additional 
duties which were to form an important part in the sanctifi- 
cation of it. The passage proves that the first day of the 
week was the constant day of the Church's assembling. 

The apostle also remarks that he had given the same 
orders to other churches, notably to the church in Galatia. 



Our Sabbath. 31 

Thus it is clear that within a short period after the Saviour's 
resurrection the Lord's Day was generally acknowledged. 
It was celebrated by Christians before the New Testament 
was written, and is referred to in the New Testament 
books as already established. There can be no doubt that 
this new custom began upon the authority which the 
apostles received from Christ, and from the plenary inspi- 
ration of the Holy Spirit. And the custom was tremen- 
dously influential, too. Gradually it supplanted the Jewish 
habits. It was as much of a protest against Judaism as the 
Jewish Sabbath had ever been a protest against idolatry. 
Indeed, the Christian custom combined the two features. 
The Lord's Day was an open protest against atheism and 
idolatry on the one hand, and against Judaism and super- 
stition on the other. By observing it the apostles publicly 
professed their belief in the three grand articles of their 
creed — **In God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven 
and earth," who at the creation instituted a day of rest; 
"and in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord," who rose on 
this day and drew to it the season of sacred joy character- 
istic of the new Sabbath ; and "in the Holy Ghost," who 
on that day descended upon the infant Church to qualify its 
members for service, and to be their abiding Comforter and 
Guide. More upon this subject in the succeeding chapter. 



THE FIRST DAY RESTORED. 

Having shown that the true Sabbath means holy rest 
unto the Lord, and is perpetuated in the fourth command- 
ment, which all true Christians seek to obey ; and having 
indicated that the seventh-day Sabbath was peculiar to the 
Jewish system and has passed away, we now proceed to 



32 The Lord's Day 

consider the inauguration of the Christian system and the 
establishment of the Lord's Day. 

'* At the opening of the Christian economy," says Dr. A. 
L. Stone, ** the whole state of the Church underwent a rev- 
olution. In some way, or to some extent, almost every- 
thing was changed. The Mediator of the covenant was 
changed, Moses for Christ. The law was changed, the 
Levitical for the Evangelical. The high priesthood was 
changed, that of Aaron for that of Jesus. The promises 
were changed, those which looked primarily to temporal 
blessings for those which looked directly to eternal. The 
worship was changed, the stately and splendid rites of the 
temple for the simple and spiritual forms of the Church. 
The sacraments were changed, the passover for the Lord's 
Supper, and the bloody seal of circumcision for the un- 
bloody laver of baptism. The whole dispensation was 
changed, that of the law and works for that of * grace and 
truth.* With all these changes, then, everything else made 
thus new, is it wonderful that the day of the Sabbath was 
also changed ? " Is it wonderful, especially in view of the 
fact that right along through the whole Mosaic administra- 
tion there had been a preparation and prophecy of it.^ 
What was the institution of the Pentecost but a prepara- 
tion for the coming Christian Sabbath ? It occurred im- 
mediately following the completed IsraeHtish Sabbath, or, 
in other words, the closed series of seventh-day Sabbaths, 
and the Israelites were commanded to observe it. It was, 
indeed, a Sabbath in itself, ordained by the fiat of God, and 
not occasioned by any local event of Jewish history. " It 
was allowed to be known only as a token of the completion 
of the full series of the Mosaic seventh days, evidently sig- 
nifying that when that dispensation was really completed 



OUR SABBATH. 33 

its antitype would be found in a divine manifestation 
greater than that of Sinai— the day of a better covenant. 
... It was a greater day than the Jewish seventh-day 
Sabbath. It was the festival day. For it the tribes had 
gathered at the sanctuary. The previous Sabbath found 
them there simply because it preceded the festival. On 
that Sabbath everyone looked forward to the festival. The 
festival day also was a Sabbath without the restriction of 
the seventh day. Both Sabbaths were celebrated by con- 
vocations. But the festival Sabbath added to the convo- 
cation the sacrificial feast." {Eight Studies in the Lord's 
Day.^^ Beautifully, therefore, did the feast of the Pentecost 
prepare the mind for the greater Sabbath which was again 
dawning upon the world. 

The Pentecost was a joyous feast. The Sabbath was 
designed to be a day of holy rest and joy. But on the Jew- 
ish Sabbath the Saviour lay under the power of death. It 
was to his disciples a day of restlessness and gloom. The 
remembrance of that day would always be to them griev- 
ous. The thought of the agony, the cross, the bitter cry, 
the expiring groan, and the awful sepulcher could only 
create a feeling of sorrow. For evermore the Jewish Sab- 
bath day was despoiled of its gladness to the Christian 
heart. There must be a change, and what better day than 
the original first day, that blessed first day when our Lord 
burst the bars of death and rose triumphant from the 
tomb ? The resurrection is preeminently a joyful event, and 
from the moment it occurred the first day of the week be- 
came the only fit day for the celebration of the Sabbath of 
rest and joy. 

Taking advantage of the revised reading of Matt. 28. i, 
which reads : '' Late on the Sabbath, as it began to dawn 
3 



34 The Lord's Day 

toward the first day of the week," some Sabbatarians have 
assumed that ** late on the Sabbath " means late on Satur- 
day afternoon, and consequently that Jesus rose on the 
seventh day instead of the first. This theory requires but 
few words to explode it. 

Christ himself predicted (see Matt. 12. 40) that he should 
be three days in the bowels of the earth. If he arose on 
Saturday, he must have been crucified on Thursday instead 
of Friday, which is contrary to Scripture. Nothing is more 
explicitly taught than that he was crucified on the day be- 
fore the Jewish Sabbath, as see Matt. 27. 62, " Now the 
next day that followed the day of the preparation, the chief 
priests and Pharisees came together unto Pilate; "this 
compare with Mark 15.42-47, " Now when the even was 
come, because it was the preparation, that is, the day be- 
fore the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, an honorable coun- 
selor, which also waited for the kingdom of God, came 
and went in boldly unto Pilate, and craved the body of 
Jesus. . . . And he bought fine linen, and took him down, and 
wrapped him in the linen, and laid him in a sepulcher which 
was hewn out of a rock, and rolled a stone unto the door 
of the sepulcher. And Mary Magdalene and Mary the 
mother of Joses beheld where he was laid;" 16. i, "And 
when the Sabbath was passed," etc. Also compare with 
Luke 23. 54-56. He was therefore taken down from the 
cross on Friday, and rose again, as he said, " on the third 
day." According to Matt. 16. 21 ; 17. 23 ; 20. 19 ; and 26. 61, 
it will be conceded by all fair-minded interpreters that 
" after three days " must be interpreted according to the 
oft-repeated declaration " on the third day," and in harmony 
with the facts as recorded. 

The phrase, ''late on the Sabbath," can only mean "at 



Our Sabbath. 35 

the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first 
day of the week." The best lexical authorities show this. 
Take one or two : 

Greenfield's Greek Testament — Opse de sabbaton, *' late 
in the Sabbath — after or at the end of the Sabbath." 
(Matt. 28. I.) 

Dounegon — Opse, •* late, too late ; properly after, hence 
with a genitive — long after. Opse ton Troikon, long after 
the Trojan war." 

Robison — New Testament Lexicon gives opse with a 
genitive, *'at the end of— at the close of — after." (Matt. 
28. I.) '* At the end of the Sabbath, that 'is, after the Sab- 
bath, the Sabbath being now ended." 

Groves — Opse, " late in the evening — a long time after — 
at length." 

Bagster — Opse sabbaton, "after the close of the Sabbath." 

The four evangelists, taken together, give a harmonious 
account of the Saviour's rising ** early the first day of the 
week." 

John says : " The first day of the week cometh Mary 
Magdalene early, when it w^as yet dark, unto the sepulcher " 
(chap. 20. i). 

Again : ** Then the same day at evening, being the first 
•day of the week, came Jesus," etc. (chap. 20. 19). These 
two passages together render John's testimony irrefutable. 

Luke also says : " Upon the first day of tlie week, very 
early in the moniing, they came unto the sepulcher " 
(chap. 24. I). 

Mark says : '* Very early in the morning, the first day of 

the week, they came Now when Jesus was risen 

early the first day of the week" (chap. 16. 2-9). 

This evidence is overwhelming. All four evangelists are 



36 The Lord's Day 

agreed that the resurrection occurred in the morning, at the 
hour of dawn, when night was receding and day advanc- 
ing. There is no break in this divinely inspired chain. It 
will hold the truth forever. All ripe scholarship attests this 
view. It cannot be overthrown. 

Any other interpretation involves in inextricable difficul- 
ties. If the resurrection occurred on Saturday evening be- 
fore dark, then the story of the guards (Matt. 28. 13), *' His 
disciples came by night, and stole him away while we slept," 
has absolutely no significance at all. Equally meaningless 
is the account of the women going to the sepulcher early in 
the morning to embalm the body of Jesus, and surprised to 
find the sepulcher empty, when they knew the evening be- 
fore that he had risen. 

We brand the theory that Christ rose from the dead on 
Saturday evening as unscriptural, absurd, and wickedly 
false. 

The question has been asked whether the Lord's Day is 
the subject of any Old Testament prophecy. Bishop Home 
thinks it is. He calls Psalm 118 ''a triumphal hymn 
sung at the resurrection of the Messiah." In it the Church 
says : *' Open to me the gates of righteousness [places of 
worship] : I will go into them, and I will praise the Lord. 
. . . The stone which the builders rejected is become the 
headstone of the corner. . . . This is the day which the 
Lord hath made ; we will rejoice and be glad in it." Rev. 
William Armstrong remarks upon these passages : 

" I. The builders reject the stone, and crucify our Lord. 

" 2. The disciples rejoiced, not when he was laid in the 
grave, but on his resurrection day. 

" ' And while they believed not for joy ' (Luke 24. 41), 
* did not our heart burn within us ? ' (verse 32.) It was 



Our Sabbath. 37 

on this day that the disciples were glad, because they saw 
the Lord (John 20. 19). At this time he referred them to 
what was written of him in these psalms (Luke 24. 44). 
At this time he built his Church, of which he was the 
corner stone. He was seen to be the chief corner stone on 
his great day of triumph— the resurrection day. It was 
then%nd is now, the day of worship and joy to the Chris- 
tian Church." 

St. John, in his gospel (chap. 20), relates certain particu- 
lars of the resurrection morning, and the sanction which our 
Lord gave to the first day of the week as the newly ap- 
pointed Sabbath of Christendom. After detailing the oc- 
currences of the resurrection, the nineteenth verse opens 
with, " Then the same day at evening, being the first day 
of the week, when the doors were yet shut where the dis- 
ciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and 
stood in the midst, and saith unto them. Peace be unto 
you." After giving them certain instructions, and breath- 
ing upon them the Holy Ghost, he withdrew and was not 
seen again that week. Then in the twenty-sixth verse we 
are told that "after eight days" (being the second first day 
after the resurrection), " again his disciples were within, and 
Thomas with them; then came Jesus, the doors being 
shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you." 
What peace is this so oft reiterated but the peace of a 
diviner Sabbath than had hitherto dawned upon man ? 

That this meeting was on Sunday is evident from the 
following considerations : He had met with them the pre- 
vious Sunday evening. The words '' after eight days " are 
to be understood the same as the expression " after three 
days" (Mark 8. 31). Jesus died Friday, laid in the grave 
Saturday, and arose on Sunday. Each portion of a day 



38 The Lord's Day 

counts as one day. This was the prevailing custom. In 
like manner the phrase ** after eight days " must be under- 
stood as meaning ** on the eighth day," counting the pre- 
ceding Sunday as one day and the present Sunday as 
another. ''The eighth day" was a common term for the 
resurrection day among all the early Christian writers. 

After convincing Thomas of his actual identity as the 
risen Lord, and giving many unrecorded signs of the new 
kingdom now established, Jesus again withdrew, and his 
third appearance was to the disciples at the Sea of Galilee 
(John 21. 1-14). Three more first days passed before the 
ascension, and though we are not told w^hether our Lord 
appeared on any or all of them, we are informed that he ap- 
peared three times, once to five hundred brethren besides 
the apostles, once to James, and once to all the apostles 
(I Cor. 15. 4-8). 

" It was not accident," says Dr. Nesbit, "but a divine 
purpose and arrangement, that brought Christ from the 
grave on first day, and that made after-revelations of him- 
self to the disciples — perhaps all of them — first-day events. 
The post-resurrection appearings of Christ are recorded ; 
six of the ten on first day ; five on resurrection day itself ; 
and one on next first day. Indeed all the recorded ap- 
pearings of our risen but unascended Lord, whose dates 
are ascertainable, were on first day, and not one on 
seventh day. This is very remarkable. The risen Jesus 
selected first days, never seventh days, in revealing him- 
self to the disciples." {The Sabbath of the Bible, p. 108.) 

Thus the resurrection day and the first day were con- 
stantly associated with the bodily appearance of the 
Master. And after the ascension, it being the seventh 
Sunday after the resurrection, the day of Pentecost, the 



Our Sabbath. 39 

disciples were again assembled ** with one accord," " for 
prayer and supplication," when Jesus shed upon them the 
promised Comforter, the fullness of the divine Spirit, which 
was ever after to characterize the covenant then in force. 
That the day of Pentecost fell on Sunday has always been 
held. The command for its observance indicates this: 
" Ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the Sab- 
bath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave 
offering ; seven Sabbaths shall be complete : even unto the 
morrow after the seventh Sabbath shall ye number fifty 
days" (Lev. 23. 15, 16). 

The day after the seventh Jewish Sabbath could be none 
other than the first day, or Sunday. The word Pentecost 
mt2ins fiftieth. All authorities agree that it fell on Sunday. 
" That the day of Pentecost fell on Sunday is undeniable, be- 
cause the resurrection of Christ was upon a Sunday, and 
Pentecost was the fiftieth day from the resurrection I " 
(Bramhall's Works, v, 51). How important this day. How 
powerful the preaching that began upon it ! How purifying 
the baptism of the Holy Ghost which fell upon it ! How 
significant the first fruits of salvation which were then 
gathered ! How sweet the rest which was then instituted ! 

This is the ♦* rest that remaineth." This is the day '* now 
sacred to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost," gathering into itself 
the memory of the three great works of the Trinity— crea- 
tion, redemption, and spiritual baptism— and pouring forth 
for Christians the fullness of his manifold grace. " Thus 
by example did Jesus hallow the first day of the week as 
a divine rest for Christians, throughout the evangelic age, 
and by the authority of a God sanctioned the change so 
made." 

But some people profess to be dissatisfied with the exam- 



40 The Lord's Day 

pie alone, and ask for the express command. They say, 
" Show us the written authority for the change. Point us 
to the plain command of Jesus, and we are content." But 
this requirement is absurd. There is no express command 
on record for the abolishment of circumcision, yet it is done 
away. There is no express command to substitute the 
Christian Church for the synagogue, yet it is done. There 
is no record of a command to displace the passover by the 
Lord's Supper, yet the change occurred. No direct com- 
mand can be found for women at the Lord's table, but 
they are there. The fact is, that Christianity accomplished 
some of its mightiest revolutions by personal example and 
growth rather than by formal command and sudden 
change. Jesus taught his disciples many things that are 
not left on record, and his exainple in reference to the 
first-day Sabbath has substantially the force cf a written 
commandment. 

The apostles were all faithful in emulating that example. 
Their practice from that day on prov^es that they had the 
authority of their Master for the new order of things. 
Otherwise there would have been expressed dissent, and a 
division in the Church. Such a result would have been 
inevitable. 

During the entire ministry of Paul the disciples, follow- 
ing the clearly indicated will of their Master, ** came to- 
gether on the first day of the week to break bread " and to 
listen to the preaching of the Gospel (Acts 20. 7). Here 
we see how this first great Christian missionary, with other 
distinguished ministers and the church at Troas, in A. D. 
60, utterly ignored the seventh-day Sabbath and kept the 
Lord's Day. About the same time Paul gave orders to the 
churches at Galatia and Corinth concerning "the collection 



Our Sabbath. 41 

for the saints," which unmistakably show that their assem- 
blies were all held on ** the first clay of the week " (i Cor. 
16. 1,2). Again, in his letter to the Colossians, he says: 
•* Let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink, or in 
respect of a holyday, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath 
days : which are a shadow of things to come ; but the body 
is of Christ." All these things Christians were to discard, 
because, belonging to the old covenant, they were absolved. 
The Jewish day had gone with the Jewish economy, with 
all its false restrictions and associations begotten by the 
traditions of the Jewish teachers, but the spiritual fact re- 
mained and was carried back to primitive simplicity, coin- 
ciding exactly with the pure teachings of Christ and his 
apostles. 

A change of this covenant was a foreordained event 
when Moses came down from the mount with the cove- 
nant in his hand. Says Paul, in 2 Cor. 3. 13 : ** Moses put 
a veil over his face, that the children of Israel could not 
steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished." 
The veil used on this occasion was to conceal from the 
Jews the manifest destiny of that first covenant. Paul goes 
on to say : " Their minds were blinded : for until this day 
remaineth the same veil untaken away in the reading of 
the Old Testament, which veil is done away in Christ." At 
the first interview of Christ with his disciples after the 
resurrection, he expounded the things concealed by the 
veil, hidden in himself, beginning at Moses and all the 
prophets, by which the disciples understood that the first 
covenant of circumcision. Sabbath days, priesthood, sacri- 
fices, and offerings for sin, had served out their appointed 
time, were henceforth to have no force ; in a word, to be as 
though they had never been. 



42 The Lord's Day 

THE LORD'S DAY. 

There is no record that the apostolic Christians ever met 
by themselves for the purpose of religious worship on the 
Jewish Sabbath day. They did often meet with the Jews 
on their Sabbath, but it was for the purpose of making 
known the truths of the Gospel. It was Paul's custom to 
go into the Jewish synagogues on the seventh day and 
urge upon the people the doctrine of Christ's resurrection 
and of salvation through his name. (See Acts, 13th, 14th, 
15th, i6th, and 17th chapters.) At Thessalonica he con- 
tinued for three succeeding Sabbaths reasoning *' with them 
from the Scriptures, opening and alleging, that it behooved 
Christ to suffer, and to rise again from the dead." Such 
questions as the wanderings of Israel in the wilderness, the 
division of their land by lot, the appointment of judges 
over them, the appointment of David as king, the promise 
of the Saviour, Jesus, the preaching of John, the coming of 
Christ, and his sufferings and death, his resurrection by 
divine power, the glad tidings to be declared through the 
fulfillment of promises made unto the fathers, justification 
by faith, the abolishment of circumcision and other customs 
required by the law of Moses. That the Sabbath question 
entered into Paul's reasonings on these occasions is very 
evident from Rom. 14. 1-6. Some w^ere "weak in the 
faith," and it was Paul's wish that such be not received 
'• to doubtful disputations." " One man," he said, " esteem- 
eth one day above another ; another esteemeth every day 
alike. Let each man be fully assured in his own mind." 
Paul knew that the Jewish Sabbath day would go down 
but slowly, like some other peculiarities of the Jewish sys- 
tem, and it was his aim, for the sake of the conscientious 



Our Sabbath. 43 

Jewish converts, to produce a feeling of great liberality 
upon the question. Yet he was decided himself, and con- 
tinued all through his ministry to meet the Christian 
churches on the hrst day of the week, and to preach the 
doctrine of the new dispensation with great earnestness and 
power. (Acts 20. 7, 16; 21. 4, 21, 28; 28. 23-31.) 

The Rev. Daniel Wilson, of England, afterwards Bishop 
of Calcutta, says : 

*• We have no express prohibition of the Jewish, nor in- 
junction of the Christian Sabbath. It was a matter subor- 
dinate, and was now to make its way by force of circum- 
stances and the tacit influence of the apostles' doctrines. 
On the question of the Jewish ceremonies indeed contro- 
versy arose, circumcision and keeping the law of Moses 
were made the occasion of supplanting the great doctrine 
of justification. But w^here no dispute arose, where all ob- 
served one day in seven for religious rest, where no yoke 
was attempted to be imposed on the Gentiles, the apostles 
were 'gentle as a nurse cherisheth her own children.' The 
Jewish converts were allowed to observe the Mosaic Sab- 
bath. The Gentiles who had previously celebrated their 
pagan festivals, renounced these on their conversion for the 
holy rest of the Lord's Day. They spontaneously kept the 
Christian Sabbath as a natural duty."* 

Here we see that the Gentile converts not only renounced 
their pagan customs, but also turned from the Jewish Sab- 
bath to the first-day Sabbath, and this, too, while the great- 
est liberty of choice was allowed to all, proving beyond 
question that the new first-day Sabbath was then considered 
distinctively Christian. 

* Divine A uthority and Perpetual Obligation of the Lord's Day^ p. 133. 



44 The Lord's Day 

At length God formally manifested his will respecting 
the new order of things by inspiring St. John to designate 
the first-day Sabbath by its proper name — ** Lord's Day " 
(Rev. I. lo) — plainly signifying that the day had already 
obtained a particular name, which proves that it had be- 
come a day of general observance. Just as the supper that 
displaced the paschal feast was called the Lord's Supper, 
even so this day that displaced the Jewish was called the 
Lord's Day. On this stated day the primitive Christians 
always convened for their worship, and so well known 
was their custom in this respect that one of the ordinary 
questions put by persecutors to the Christian martyrs 
was, **Hast thou kept the Lord's Day .^" To which the 
usual reply was given, ** I am a Christian ; I cannot 
avoid it." 

Some have expressed wonder why the term '' Lord's 
Day " is only once mentioned in the New Testament. 
They might also wonder why the expression " seventh day " 
is only once mentioned in the Old Testament prior to its 
designation as the Jewish Sabbath. 

"The Book of Genesis," says a learned author, " in its re- 
lation to the sacred seventh day, presents some remarkable 
parallels to the New Testament in its treatment of the 
Lord's Day. The Lord's Day is so styled in the New 
Testament once ; the seventh day in Genesis once. The 
event to which the Lord's Day refers is clearly described 
in the New Testament ; the event to which the seventh day 
refers is equally clear in Genesis. The action of our Lord 
in observing the week in his abstention, and in glorifying 
its boundary day by his manifestation, answers to the action 
of the Creator who observes the week in the development 
of his cosmos, and crowns the seventh day with his per- 



Our Sabbath. 4S 

sonal benediction. In the New Testament there is no 
formal command to observe the Lord's Day ; in Genesis, no 
formal command to observe the seventh day. But as the 
observance of the Lord's Day, after the close of the New 
Testament canon, throws light upon the few allusions in 
the text, so the observance of the seventh day, after the 
close of Genesis, and before the enactments of Sinai (see 
Exod. 1 6. 22-30), throws light upon the earlier records. 
Nevertheless, alike in the New Testament and in Genesis, 
the facts of the actual observance of the sacred days are 
stated incidentally, not directly, as though the author of 
Holy Writ intended that their meaning should be yielded up 
to those of later times, prepared by the discipline of the 
ages to use it. On their earliest readers (or reciters) the 
impression which induced them to maintain their sacred 
day was made by something more than thi^ bare record." 
{Eight Studies in the Lord*s Day, a highly suggestive 
and readable book.) 



THE LORD'S DAY IN HISTORY. 

The post-apostolic writers uniformly speak of the Lord's 
Day as an established Christian institution, and do not hint 
at the necessity of defending it. It is manifest that they re- 
ceived it **with all the sanction of primitive Christian 
usage, with the full consecration of the Master himself." 

Ignatius, a disciple of John, who wrote about A. D. 100, 
in his epistle to the Magnesians, in making a contrast be- 
tween Judaism and Christianity, goes on to say : ** If those 
who were concerned with old things have come to newness 
of hope, no longer keeping (Jewish) Sabbaths, but living 
according to the Lord's Day, in which our life has arisen 



46 The Lord's Day 

again through him and his death, . . . how can we live 
without him whom the prophets waited for as their teacher, 
being in spirit his disciples ? " Again, he called the Lord's 
Day the ** queen and chief of all days," and says: "It is 
presupposed that even the Jews who have come over to 
Christianity substituted Sunday in place of the Sabbath." 
(We wish to observe here that Dr. Lightfoot, Bishop of 
Durham, in his recently published work on the Ignatian 
Epistles, has triumphantly vindicated the oft-disputed 
genuineness of the shorter Recension in which the above 
quotations appear, and in this he is powerfully supported 
by Harnach. Rejecting the longer Greek R-ecensions as 
fabricated in the fourth century, and the Curetonian 
Epistles as a harmless collection made about the year 
A. D. 400, or somewhat earlier, Harnach says: ** There re- 
mains therefore the shorter Greek Recension of the Epistles. 
Whether these Epistles are genuine or not is one of the 
main problems of early Church history. . . After repeated 
investigation the genuineness of the Epistles seems to me 
certain. I hold the hypothesis of their spuriousness to be 
untenable. In this conclusion I agree with Lightfoot, and 
I also thank him for having removed many difficulties in 
detail which I had previously felt.") 

Chapter xiv of The Teachings of the Apostles, which 
is supposed to have been written about A. D. 125, opens 
with this direction to the saints : " But on the Lord's Day 
do ye assemble and break bread, and give thanks, after con- 
fessing your transgressions, in order that your sacrifice may 
be pure." There is no reference to the Jewish Sabbath in 
the entire document. 

Irenaeus, a disciple of Polycarp, who was a disciple of 
John, and who lived in the second century, says : " On the 



Our Sabbath. 47 

Lord's Day every one of us Christians keeps the Sabbath 
meditating in the law, and rejoicing in the works of God." 

Justin Martyr, A. D. 138, writes very clearly of the new 
order of things. He says : ** On the day called Sunday there 
is a gathering in one place of all who reside either in the 
cities or in the country places, and the memoirs of the 
apostles and the writings of the prophets are read " 
{Apology i, 67). He goes on to give reasons for keeping 
this day, namely : 

"Because it is the first day on which God, having 
wrouglit a change in the darkness and matter, made the 
world ; and Jesus Christ, our Saviour, on the same day rose 
from the dead. For he was crucified on the day before 
that of Saturn (Saturday) ; and on the day after that of 
Saturn, which is the day of the Sun, having appeared to 
his apostles and disciples, he taught them these things, 
which we have submitted to you also for your consideration." 

This statement of Justin Martyr is of priceless value in 
its bearing upon the truth that Jesus himself taught his dis- 
ciples by word of mouth, as well as by example, to observe 
the first day of the week. There is no evading Justin's 
plain declaration, that ''he taught them these things!' 

Melito, Bishop of Sardis, according to Eusebius, wrote a 
work on the Lord's Day, about A. D. 170, and Diony- 
sius, Bishop of Corinth, about the same date, wrote a letter 
to Soter, Bishop of the Church of Rome, in which occurs 
this statement : ** To-day we have spent the Lord's holy 
day, and in it we have read your epistle." 

Tertullian, of Carthage, who wrote largely about the 
second century, made many references to the new Sabbath. 
Here are specimens : ** Sundays we give to joy," " to observe 
the day of the Lord's resurrection." " If we spend Sunday 



48 The Lord's Day 

in rejoicing it is from a different reason than sun worship ; 
we are also distinct from those who spend Saturday in idle- 
ness and feasting, leaving the ancient Jewish custom of 
which they are ignorant." ** We celebrate Sunday as a joy- 
ful day. On the Lord's Day we think it wrong to fast," etc. 
These quotations from TertuUian are important as showing 
the willful error of those modern writers who seek to prove 
that the primitive Christians apostatized from the apostolic 
faith and practice, and fell in with the pagan custom of sun 
worship. TertuUian says plainly that their Sunday observ- 
ance was from a very " different reason than sun worship." 
Speaking to the nations still in idolatry, he defended the 
Christian Sabbath, or Lord's Day, by an appeal to their 
own customs : 

" Others with greater regard to good manners, it must be 
confessed, suppose that the sun is the god of the Christians, 
because it is a well-known fact that we pray toward the 
east, or because we make Sunday a day of festivity. What 
then ? Do you do less than this ? Do not many among 
you, with an affectation of sometimes worshiping the heavenly 
bodies, likewise move your lips in the direction of the sun- 
rise ? It is you, at all events, who have even admitted the 
sun into the calendar of the week ; and you have selected 
its day (Sunday) in preference to the preceding day as the 
most suitable in the week for either an entire absence from 
the bath, or for its postponement until the evening, or for 
taking rest, and for banqueting. By resorting to these 
customs you deliberately deviate from your own religious 
rites to those of strangers. For the Jewish feasts are the 
Sabbath and the purification, and Jewish also are cere- 
monies of the lamps, and the fasts of unleavened bread, and 
the * literal prayers,' all which institutions and practices are 



t 



Our Sabbath. 49 

of course foreign from your gods. Wherefore, that I may 
return from this digression, you who reproach us with the 
sun and Sunday, should consider your proximity to us. 
We are not far off from your Saturn and your days of 
rest." 

These quotations, we repeat, prove that the early Chris- 
tians who observed Sunday, and were claimed by the 
heathen to be sun worshipers, very emphatically denied the 
accusation. They observed Sunday, but, unlike the heathen» 
they did it to commemorate Christ. Their pure forms of 
Christian worship were as far removed from idolatry as 
ever were the religious observances of " the chosen 
people." 

In the second century the Lord's Day was universally 
observed. The Jewish Christians ceased to observe their 
Sabbath after the destruction of Jerusalem. Dr. Schaff 
clinches the nail upon this point when he says: "The uni- 
versal and uncontradicted Sunday observance in the second 
century can be explained only by the fact that it had its 
roots in apostolic practice j' {History of Christian Churchy 
vol. i, p. 478). 

Origen, the great theologian of Alexandria, in the begin- 
ning of the third century, wrote that the Lord's Day was 
•* placed above the Jewish Sabbath." " To keep the Lord's 
Day " is, in his opinion, " one of the marks of the perfect 
Christian." 

Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, about the same period, says : 
** We keep the Lord's Day, because of Him who rose 
thereon." 

Clement, of Alexandria, a contemporary of Tertullian, 
says : " A true Christian, according to the commands of the 
Gospel, observes the Lord's Day by casting out all bad 

4 



50 The Lord's Day 

thoughts, and cherishing all goodness, honoring the resur- 
rection of the Lord which took place on that day." 

Chrysostom, on Psalm 119, says: *' It was called Lord's 
Day because the Lord rose from the dead on that day." 

Later fathers make a marked distinction between the 
Sabbath and the Lord's Day, meaning by the former the 
Jewish Sabbath, or the seventh day of the week, and by 
the latter the first day of the week, kept holy by all Chris- 
tians. So Theodoret, speaking of the Ebionites, says: 
" They keep the Sabbath according to the Jewish law, and 
sanctify the Lord's Day in like manner as we do." 

Eusebius, about A. D. 324, gives a decisive passage. He 
says : " The Word [Christ] by the new covenant translated 
and transferred the feast of the Sabbath to the morning 
light, and gave us the symbol of true rest — the saving 
Lord's Day — the first [day] of light in which the Saviour 
obtained the victory over death ... on this day, which is 
the first of the light, and of the true Son, we assemble, after 
an interval of six days, and celebrate holy and spiritual 
Sabbath ; even all nations redeemed by him throughout the 
world, assemble and do those things according to the 
spiritual law which was decreed for the priests to do on the 
Sabbath ; all things which it was duty to do on the Sabbath 
[that is, Jewish Sabbath] these we have transferred to the 
Lord's Day, as more appropriately belonging to it, because 
it has the precedence, and is first in rank and more honor- 
able than the Jewish Sabbath. It is delivered to us {para- 
dedoti), handed down by tradition, that we should meet to- 
gether on this day, and it is evidence that we should do 
these things announced in this psalm " (Psalm 92). (See 
Coleman's Ancient Christianity Exemplified, and Professor 
Stuart on Rev. 1. 10.) 



Our Sabbath. 51 

In the beginning of the fourth century occurred the con- 
version to Christianity of the Emperor Constantine, and 
thereafter Christianity became practically the religion of 
the empire. Then was enacted the first Sunday civil law, 
designed to make the first day of the week the universal 
Sabbath. It is known as the Edict of Constantine, and 
was issued A. D. 321. Some seventh-day people main- 
tain that Sunday was first set apart by this Edict of 
Constantine, but we have conclusively shown that the 
first day was almost universally observed prior to that 
date. Constantine's decree commanded a faithful attend- 
ance upon public worship, and prohibited all amusements 
and vain recreations, such as theatrical exhibitions, danc- 
ing, and the like, but allowed works of mercy. And 
this was binding upon the army as well as upon the citi- 
zens. It simply made the Lord's Day the legal Sabbath. 

The Emperor Theodosius, A. D. 450, who had the 
honor of terminating paganism in the Roman Empire, 
enacted laws " forbidding in every city even Jews and 
pagans to attend the theater and circus on the Lord's 
Day." 

The Emperor Leo, A. D. 469, ** forbade any judicial 
proceedings on the Lord's Day, or any plays and games.'* 
The reader will understand that these enactments were 
laws of the Roman Empire under Christian emperors. 

The second council of Mascon was held A. D. 585. On 
the observance of Sunday they say : " Let none follow any 
business on this day. Let none yoke oxen, or prosecute 
suits at law ; but let all the world apply themselves to sing 
the praises of God." They also decreed penalties against 
Sabbath breakers. (Milner.) 

Pliny, the heathen, in his letter to Trajan, clearly proves 



52 The Lord's Day 

that Christians had a stated day for worship, when they 
sang hymns of praise to Christ as God. 

In Mosheim's History of the First Century y and Mos- 
heim is an historian whose merits are acknowledged by all, 
we are told that *'all Christians were unanimous in setting 
apart the first day of the week, on which the triumphant 
Saviour arose from the dead, for the solemn celebration of 
public worship. This pious custom, which was derived 
from the example of the Church of Jerusalem, was founded 
upon the express appointment of the apostles, who conse- 
crated that day to the same sacred purpose, and was 
observed universally throughout all the Christian churches, 
as appears from the united testimonies of the most credible 
writers." 

These proofs are ample, and ought forever to set the Sab- 
bath question at rest. No intelligent Christian mind, it 
seems to us, can hereafter be disturbed in the slightest de- 
gree by subtle essays or lectures to the effect that mankind 
should go back to Judaism and observe the seventh day. 
Let us hold fast our allegiance to Christ. To profane his 
Sabbath and deny its sacredness is practically to deny our 
Lord's divinity and crucify him afresh. 



OBSERVANCE OF THE LORD'S DAY. 

How shall the Christian Sabbath be observed ? We 
have shown that the Jews had laws of their own respect- 
ing the keeping of their "■ seventh day." They allowed no 
works of mercy or even deeds of necessity. Our Lord 
himself rebuked such inconsistency, and the Jews called 
him a Sabbath breaker, and sought how they might 
destroy him (Matt. 12. 1-2 1). But Jesus was greater 



Our Sabbath. 53 

than the Sabbath, and fixed it so as to be a blessing in- 
stead of a burden to the race. It is not designed to 
deprive man of any real good, but to favor him with rest 
and the privileges of religious v^orship. The Sabbath is a 
day of rest : 

" He rested on the seventh day from all his work . . . 
and God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it : because 
that in it he had rested from all his work " (Gen. 2. 2, 3). 

•* Six days shalt thou do thy work, and on the seventh 
day thou shalt rest : that thine ox and thine ass may rest, 
and the son of thine handmaid, and the stranger may be 
refreshed'' (Exod. 23. 12). 

Observe, nothing is said in these passages about the 
seventh day of the week, but only the seventh day as follow- 
ing six days of work. 

Man needs rest. After six days of labor he requires a 
seventh for rest. The creational idea of working six days 
and resting the seventh is grounded in true reason. The 
Christian idea of making their rest day fall on the first day 
of the week is grounded in patriarchal customs as well as 
in New Testament teachings. As Abel brought the first- 
lings of his flock to God, so Christians bring the first of 
their time. " He that remembers not to keep the Christian 
Sabbath at the beginning of the week," said Sir E. Turner, 
Speaker in the House of Commons in 1663, " will be in 
danger of forgetting before the end of the w^eek that he is a 
Christian at all." 

By rest we do not mean inactivity, but a cessation from 
all labor put forth to secure our own gratification or re- 
w^ard. The farmer should cease to plow and sow. The 
merchant should close his store and sell no goods. The 
student should cease his investigations. All men should 



54 The Lord's Day 

stop their regular week-day toil, and devote the day to 
spiritual culture. This is the primary object of the Sab- 
bath. It has been so employed from time immemorial. It 
is the day of "holy convocation," v^'hen devout hearts 
should be " with one accord in one place," and that place a 
place of worship. 

" If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from 
doing thy pleasure on my holy day ; and call the Sabbath a 
delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable ; and shalt honor 
him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own 
pleasure, nor speaking thine own words : then shalt thou 
delight thyself in the Lord " (Isa. 58. 13). 

'' If a spiritual rest, a holy rest, one day in seven, is to the 
Christian a weariness ; if he must go to the world for rest 
on that day, how can he endure an endless Sabbath, of 
which the earthly is the type ! If the shadow is a burden, 
how can he sustain the substance ? " (Passaic.) 

In the third and fourth chapters of Paul's letter to the 
Hebrews the apostle dwells very impressively upon the 
idea of this Sabbath rest, carrying the mind back to the 
earliest conception of it, tracing its observance through 
the Mosiac covenant, enforcing the necessity of its ob- 
servance under the Christian dispensation, and unfolding a 
glimpse of the perfect and permanent rest of the great 
future. 

In the latter half of the third chapter he speaks of those 
rebellious Israelites who came out of Egypt by Moses, re- 
fusing to walk in his law and to keep the rest of the Sab- 
bath day holy. They ** erred in their hearts " in supposing 
that " holy rest " was abolished when they were being led 
by Moses into the promised land. This error displeased 
the Almighty, and because of it he sware in his wrath that 



Our Sabbath. 55 

they should not enter into the promised Canaanitic rest. 
" I gave them my Sabbaths, . . . but the house of Israel re- 
belled against me in the wilderness : they walked not in 
my statutes, . . . and my Sabbaths they greatly polluted : 
then I said, ... I would not bring them into the land . . . 
flowing with milk and honey." (Ezek. 20. 12-20.) 

Here we see that the nonkeeping of Sabbath was one of 
the several offenses which provoked the anger of God 
against this portion of Israel, and resulted in their exclu- 
sion from the land of promise. 

Paul then draws the parallel under the new dispensation, 
'• brings in the idea of God's rest mentioned in Gen. 2. 2, 3, 
introduces and enforces the beautiful thought of divine rest 
by faith in God, which is the privilege of all true Christians 
now, and which is consummated in the heavenly Sabbati's- 
7nos, ' Sabbath rest,' of which the ideal rest in Canaan was 
but a type." (Dr. M. S. Terry.) 

The apostle then warns the Hebrew brethren who had 
been converted to Christianity that they were in danger of 
erring in the same manner as ancient Israel, and exhorts 
them to give diligence to enter into that rest, lest any of 
them should fall after the same example of disobedience. 
The passage is so forcible that we are inclined to quote 
the first eleven verses of the fourth chapter, giving the re- 
vised rendering : 

" Let us fear therefore, lest haply, a promise being left of 
entering into his rest, any one of you should seem to have 
come short of it. For indeed we have had good tidings 
preached unto us, even as also they : but the word of hear- 
ing did not profit them, because they were not united by 
faith with them that heard. For we which have believed 
do enter into that rest ; even as he hath said, 



56 The Lord's Day 

As I sware in my wrath. 

They shall not enter into my rest ! 

although the works were finished from the foundation of 
the world. For he hath said somewhere of the seventh day 
on this wise, And God rested on the seventh day from all 
his works ; and in this place again, 

They shall not enter into my rest. 

Seeing therefore it remaineth that some should enter there- 
into, and they to whom the good tidings were before 
preached failed to enter in because of disobedience, he 
again defineth a certain day, saying in David, after so long 
a time. To-day, as it hath been before said. 

To-day if ye shall hear his voice, 
Harden not your hearts. 

For if Joshua had given them rest, he would not have spoken 
afterward of another day." (Does the apostle here inci- 
dentally refer to " the first day ? " " Another day " cannot 
mean the same day as the "seventh day," and although his 
whole thought is on the high plane of holy and spiritual rest, 
it is fair to infer a point so completely in harmony with his 
other teachings.) He concludes : " There remaineth there- 
fore a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For he that 
(s entered into his rest hath himself also rested from his 
works, as God did from his. Let us therefore give dili- 
gence to enter into that rest, that no man fall after the same 
example of disobedience." 

In the intervals of Sabbath worship works of mercy are 
allowable. To feed the hungry, comfort the sick, console 
the dying, and relieve the suffering are deeds becoming 
this holy day. Property, also, may rightfully be saved from 



Our Sabbath. 57 

destruction by fire or other disaster. (Matt. 12. 10-12; 
Luke 13. 14, 15.) Man may eat his food and engage in 
healthful bodily exercise. Jesus walked with his disciples 
through the cornfield, and plucked and ate. The eating 
was, of course, incidental. He did not go to the cornfield 
to eat, but was walking through the cornfields when he ate. 
Christ sanctioned walking abroad on the Christian Sab- 
bath. 

** And, behold, two of them went that same day [the first 
Christian Sabbath] to a village called Emmaus, which was 
from Jerusalem about threescore furlongs. . . . And Jesus 
himself drew near, and went with them.'* 

But the Sabbath should be a day of gladness, of religious 
delight. ** I have no sympathy," says Thomas Guthrie, 
"with those .who would make the Sabbath a day of gloom. 
I would have the sun to shine brighter, and the flowers to 
smell sweeter, and nature to look fairer on that day than 
on any other. I would have the very earth to put on her 
holiday attire on the blest morning on which our Saviour 
rose from the dead." But joyousness and revelry are very 
different things. There are those who would make of the 
Sabbath a day of general lawlessness and carousal. For 
these Sabbath laws are in order. Thev are worse than 
those who continue in regular workday life. Let the law 
be enforced against both, for the Sabbath works no injury 
to any, and is a boon to all. Intelligent, honest, reliable 
men, the world over, testify that one day's rest in seven is 
essential to health and well-being. It is absolutely neces- 
sary to prevent disease, insanity, and premature decay. 

In the United States Sabbath rest has always been con- 
sidered essential to the good of man. The various States 
have enacted wholesome Sunday laws, and the nation at 



S8 The Lord's Day 

large has not failed to supplement these enactments by ap- 
propriate proclamations and observances. 

The United States soldier has always been exempt from 
any unnecessary toil on Sunday, and in that respect has 
much the advantage of European soldiers. Even in time 
of war this rule has been observed whenever practicable, 
and during our late civil war President Lincoln, quoting 
the words of Washington, made a general order enjoining 
the orderly observance of the Sabbath on officers and men 
of the army and navy, and the spirit of this order still per- 
vades the service. President Lincoln, in this order, said : 

** The importance to man and beast of the prescribed 
weekly rest, the sacred rights of Christian soldiers and 
sailors, a becoming deference to the best sentiment of a 
Christian people, and a due regard for the divine will de- 
mand that Sunday labor in the army and navy be reduced 
to the measure of strict necessity." 

The rule thus laid down has governed the army from 
Lincoln's day to the present time. Even the matter of daily 
inspection and guard mount has been reduced to a mere 
perfunctory form, the complete inspection under arms being 
held on Saturdays. This is as it should be. 

Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield, once said : " Of 
all divine institutions the most divine is that which secures 
a day of rest for man. I hold it to be the most valuable 
blessing ever conceded to man. It is the corner stone of 
civilization, and its removal might even affect the health of 
the people." 

Lord Shaftesbury also declared : *' Sunday is a day so 
sacred, so important, so indispensable to man, that it ought 
to be hedged round by every form of reverence." 

Hon. William E. Gladstone testifies : " Sunday is a neces- 



Our Sabbath. 59 

sity for the retention of man's mind and of a man's frame 
in a condition to discharge his duties ; and it is desirable, 
as much as possible, to restrain the exercise of labor upon 
Sunday, and to secure to the people the enjoyment of the 
day of rest." 

Louis Blanc, Paris, France, utters the following : ** The 
weekly rest has been consecrated by all religions, and no- 
where is it more strictly observed than among Protestant 
people, who are preeminently laboring people. Diminution 
of the hours of labor does not involve any diminution of 
production. In England a workingman produces as much 
in fifty-six hours as a French workingman in seventy-two 
hours, because his forces are better husbanded." 

" The testimony is almost universal, that one begins the 
week with better spirits, with more elasticity, clearness of 
brain, and vitality of body, if he makes Sunday a day apart, 
than if he keeps in the ordinary ruts of thought and read- 
ing and action. 

** Sunday hours vary. The Jewish practice, the old New 
England habit, began the Sabbath with sundown of the 
preceding day, and closed it with the set of sun. Not all 
men can always extend Sunday's rest over twenty-four 
hours. The rule to devote a seventh of time to occupations 
entirely different from the routine of the week has hygiene 
and reason on its side. Thrift and industry are well, but 
both are most productive when a day of repose is recog- 
nized, as well for communities as for individuals." (Utica 
[iV. F.] Herald,) 

While on the one hand idleness is ruin, on the other ex- 
cessive labor destroys life. Sabbath rest is necessary; 
therefore enjoin it both by the law of love and by civil 
enactments. 



6o The Lord's Day 

In almost all Christian countries the question is being 
agitated. In Germany and Austria the factories generally 
cease work on Sunday, but domestic labor and retail trad- 
ing go on to a great extent. A conference of soap boilers, 
leather dressers, molders, porcelain and glass makers, cigar 
makers, engravers, and butchers was recently held in Ber- 
lin under the auspices of the government, and a resolution 
adopted condemning Sunday work. The grounds upon 
which this vote was founded form part of the declaration 
itself ; for it says that *' the work done on a Sunday or 
holiday is not worth much, and the workmen who do not 
rest on Sunday usually come late on Monday. If Sunday 
work were generally prohibited by law for employers and 
employed, there would be no disadvantage for the work- 
man. The income of neither would be affected, whether 
in the form of weekly w^age or piecework." 

Can a better view of a perfect world be imagined than 
that of a Sabbath-keeping world ? All nations and all in- 
dividuals ceasing from their stated vocations as the light 
of the Sabbath day breaks over the eastern hills ! Then, 
when the sound of the churchgoing bells announces the 
hour of worship, how pleasant to see the small and great, 
the rich and poor, the far and near, issue from their dwell- 
ings to gather into the courts of the Lord ! Could crime or 
disorder exist among such a people ? Would not the earth 
be the antechamber of heaven, and Sabbath rest be a fore- 
taste of heaven's eternal joys } That glorious sight may 
yet be seen. When the nature, sanctions, privileges, and 
surpassing beauty of Sabbath rest and the Gospel order 
generally are fully made known — their boon to the poor 
man, their benefits to the rich, their barrier against oppres- 
sion and degradation, and their tendency to promote pros- 



Our Sabbath. 6i 

perity and happiness to the individual, family, and nation 
— it does seem to us that the divine injunction, " Remem- 
ber the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, " will be universally 
heeded. 

We must close this discussion. Hail, blessed Sabbath, 
gracious Lord's Day, hail ! What hallowred associations 
cluster thick around thee ! Running back, week by week, 
we think of the precious seasons of worship, social and se- 
cret, which we have enjoyed in thy advantageous hours ! 
The sacred convocations, the seasons of prayer, the in- 
structive sermons, and the gladsome songs of praise are 
fresh in our memories. We think, too, of the incalculable 
good which has flowed to our race from this blessed day. 
What Gospel triumphs, beginning in Jerusalem, then in 
Judea, then in Samaria, and then in the uttermost parts of 
earth, have resulted from it ! What angel songs over re- 
pentant sinners have first been heard during its consecrated 
moments ! Thankful are we that our Saviour instituted this 
day. It carries us back in a spirit of commemoration to 
the glad morning of the resurrection and the glorious birth 
of the Gospel kingdom ; and yet farther still, to the birth of 
a new world as it sprang in beauty from its Creator's hands. 
It carries us forward in a spirit of faith and hope to the sub- 
lime consummation of Gospel work and blessing, when the 
Sabbath of earth shall be transferred to the eternal Sab- 
batism of that rest which remains for the people of God. 
Each well kept Sabbath brings us nearer, and adds to our 
fitness to meet the Founder of this rest which has been 
known from the beginning of time, and which shall continue 
when time shall be no more. Happy for us if we rightly 
perceive our obligations in respect to it, and have faith to 
enter into its permanent and perfect observance. 



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